In the digital age, organizations increasingly rely on computational infrastructure and digitally-stored data to manage their affairs and conduct business. Digital transactions and communications provide systemization, flexibility, and scalability as organizations consume and provide data and data services. Accordingly, thousands of firms may participate in a single digital supply chain.
Unfortunately, increasing reliance on computational infrastructure has also brought increased exposure to digital vulnerabilities. Malicious parties may exploit the same systemization, flexibility, and scalability of digital transactions and communications that benefit organizations to propagate malware, access private data, disrupt operations, and/or engage in fraudulent transactions. Traditionally, firms have deployed firewalls and internal security systems to insulate and protect their digital operations from the untrusted outside world. However, as the cost of interconnection drops and the incentives toward establishing digital supply chains rise, security strategies that depend on isolation have become inadequate for many organizations.
When two or more firms are linked in a digital supply chain, these firms may become increasingly dependent on the security practices of other members of the supply chain. A security failure on the part of a firm in a digital supply chain may have negative effects that propagate up the chain, potentially impacting the security, the operations, and/or the reputation of partnered firms that had no control over the security practices of the original firm that led to the security failure. In addition, a firm that has been negatively impacted by another firm's security failure may have difficulty identifying the responsible firm, thereby potentially exposing the impacted firm to ongoing threats. Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies and addresses a need for additional and improved systems and methods for providing supply-chain trust networks.